Principal Mobile Engineer - Casino

Hard Rock Digital•United Kingdom, ENG

10d•Hybrid

About The Position

Hard Rock Digital is building a team focused on becoming the best online sportsbook, casino, and social gaming company in the world. They are looking for a Principal Mobile Engineer to join their rapidly growing technology team, responsible for the continuous growth and support of an unrivalled betting experience for millions of sports fans. This role involves working closely with Product Management, Design, QA, and Backend Engineering to deliver a full-featured mobile app. The ideal candidate will have a strong track record developing React Native apps, experience with iOS and/or Android apps, and preferably a background in sportsbook, gaming, or a related industry.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in developing mobile applications (native and hybrid), with at least 7 years focused on React Native.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field; or equivalent demonstrated experience.
Deep expertise in React Native application architecture using TypeScript in strict mode, with a track record of defining patterns and conventions adopted across engineering teams.
Mastery of dual state management strategies — client state (MobX) and server state (TanStack React Query) — including the judgment to enforce clear boundaries between them at scale.
Hands-on, demonstrated experience using AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) as a core part of your daily workflow — not casual familiarity, but a track record of shaping how a team adopts them, including defining conventions, guardrails, and workflows that scale.
Proven experience designing real-time mobile systems using RESTful services, WebSockets, and GraphQL, with an emphasis on resilience, latency, and graceful degradation.
Significant native iOS (Swift/Objective-C) and/or Android (Kotlin/Java) experience, particularly in authoring and maintaining native module bridges and managing cross-boundary data flow.
Prior experience in the igaming, sportsbook, or online gaming industry, with a strong understanding of the regulatory, compliance, and geolocation constraints that shape product and architecture decisions.
Experience architecting multi-variant mobile applications — managing divergent product configurations, jurisdiction-specific logic, and feature flag–driven rollouts (e.g., LaunchDarkly) within a single codebase.
Ownership of cross-cutting technical initiatives such as design system creation, legacy codebase migration strategies, developer tooling, or CI/CD pipeline optimization for App Store and Play Store delivery.
Comprehensive knowledge of the mobile development lifecycle — application architecture, OS-level APIs, debugging, performance profiling, security hardening, and deployment — with the ability to set org-wide standards in each area.
Demonstrated ability to identify, scope, and drive multi-quarter architectural improvements — balancing long-term technical vision against near-term product delivery.
A track record of mentoring senior and staff engineers, elevating team capabilities through code review culture, technical documentation, and architectural guidance.
Strong cross-functional influence — able to partner with Product, Design, QA, and Backend Engineering leadership to shape roadmaps and make build-vs-buy-vs-migrate decisions.
Contagious and positive work ethic that raises the bar for engineering quality across the organization, not just the immediate team.

Responsibilities

Lead the Frontend technical direction of the Casino Technology unit, owning architectural decisions within the domain while ensuring alignment with the broader mobile platform.
Partner with peer Principal Engineers in Core and Sportsbook units and the Technical Director for Mobile to define, evolve, and uphold shared engineering standards, patterns, and conventions.
Own the architecture and evolution of Casino-domain features within a high-performance React Native application for iOS and Android, serving tens of thousands of daily users across multiple product variants and regulatory jurisdictions.
Develop & improve a high-performance mobile application in React Native for iOS and Android, serving tens of thousands of daily users.
Drive multi-quarter technical initiatives — legacy system migration, platform modernization, design system adoption, and build infrastructure improvements — collaborating across units to coordinate execution.
Mentor and develop senior and staff engineers through architectural guidance, code review culture, and hands-on pairing on complex problems.
Partner with Product Management, Design, QA, and Backend Engineering to shape roadmaps, inform feasibility, and make build-vs-buy-vs-migrate decisions for the Casino domain.
Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development tools and workflows across the Casino mobile team, driving measurable improvements in productivity, code quality, and developer experience.
Navigate the challenges of working in a highly regulated industry, ensuring compliance and stability while minimizing the architectural cost of jurisdiction-specific requirements.
Serve as the escalation point for complex technical problems within the Casino unit — leading troubleshooting efforts, identifying root causes quickly, and turning incidents into systemic improvements.
Champion comprehensive observability — analytics, error reporting, and performance monitoring — and use data to drive architectural and product decisions.
Contribute to cross-unit technical forums, representing Casino engineering priorities and collaborating on platform-wide decisions.
Employ state-of-the-art technologies and strategies to optimize content delivery, application performance, and developer productivity.
Cultivate a positive engineering culture that values quality, pragmatism, and continuous improvement.